Iron and Wine Goes Metal and Beer?
by Mike Conklin
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Woman King EP
February 22
Sub Pop Records
Even as an avowed fan of everything Iron and Wine’s Sam Beam has committed to tape in his young career, I’ve got to admit, I wasn’t really looking forward to writing about the Woman King EP. I correctly assumed I’d love the songs, but I also knew that my thesaurus had nothing more to offer me in the way of synonyms for quiet, sad or pretty. Unfortunately, I used them all up writing about the first two records. So as you can imagine, I was pleased as punch to find that Beam’s latest compositions come with a twist: they totally fucking rock — like, AC/DC-style, balls-to-the-wall rock.
Ok, that isn’t really true. The main components of the Iron and Wine sound are still in place. Beam strums his acoustic guitar and sings along in such a hushed, almost secretive way that you feel like you’re spying on him in the middle of his writing process, which is essentially why everyone likes him so damn much (well, that and his beard I guess). For the first time, though, Beam has added electric guitar to the mix, and he’s done so without cutting back on the intimacy inherent in everything else he’s done. That said, ‘My Lady’s House’ might be the best of the EP’s six tracks, and it’s also the one that’s most like what we’ve come to expect from Beam, meaning it’s, well, quiet, sad and pretty.
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